I brought my Great Dane in for a short feeding tube procedure; he was on chemo and had stopped eating due to stress. His entire medical team thought this procedure would be beneficial, and his prognosis was excellent from his oncologist (2+years). I waited a week just so I could get in with Dr. Noone, who we had used in the past.
We only went for a laparotomy with gastric tube placement and that is all we discussed and that I signed off on. During our consult on 6/13/19 it was determined his kidneys were stressed and Dr. Noone stated he wanted to keep him overnight for fluids and that one anesthetic event could put him in renal failure. I agreed to leave him overnight, and I told them if his kidneys had not improved in the morning, I would just come pick him up and we'd try a new appetite stimulant.
Dr. Noone and his technician assured me they'd call me first thing in the morning to let me know so I could come get him if I wanted to. They NEVER CALLED the next day. I left multiple voicemails, and they NEVER CALLED ME BACK. I called the ER side, and someone told me he WAS ALREADY IN SURGERY. I was in shock. I drove to the clinic; Dr. Noone came out and didn't tell me what he had done.
At this point, I just assumed he'd done the simple short feeding tube procedure. He left for the day, and the technicians took me to the back. My boy was clearly in distress and under a heating blanket. I said to them THREE TIMES that I thought he should spend the night, and all of them said "oh no he'll be fine." Then they proceeded to shoot him up with morphine, drag him on a mat to the parking lot (while his legs were banging things in the hall) because he couldn't stand, then five of them shoved him in my car.
His gums were pale and heart rate high; again I said I think he should stay, and they said he'd be fine. So I trusted them and left. When we got home, we pulled him out of the car, but he became so distressed in his breathing/gums turning pale that we determined we'd kill him if we moved him, so we spent the night on the garage floor with him. We wanted to get him to an ER, but again, we thought we'd kill him if we moved him.
He suffered all night. Dr. Noone's tech had told me she checks the messages between 6-9pm; no one called me back until the next day. After suffering all night, he died the next day. It was at this point I looked at my final invoice and it showed that Dr. Noone had done A MAJOR ABDOMINAL EXPLORATORY SURGERY instead of just the simple feeding tube procedure!
This was never discussed, I did not sign off on it, and I would never have agreed to that! Why would anyone put a dog who was on chemo, anorexic for two weeks, with high blood pressure and elevated kidney levels under anesthesia for THREE HOURS! It's unfathomable someone would do this, especially without permission. I still cannot understand this.
My husband called Dr. Noone to ask why he did that; instead of apologizing he claimed that I requested that! He also said they didn't call me that morning because their phones were down! He also said I refused to let my dog stay overnight! Unbelievable. We then requested his medial records 5 times via email and they ignored us.
Days later, they sent over FALSIFIED RECORDS DATED TWO DAYS AFTER HE WAS ALREADY DEAD. We called the owner of the practice, Dr. Filler, and he never bothered returning our calls. So here we are now without our dog because we went to this practice. This was completely avoidable. This never should have happened! We are devastated and heartbroken.
We trusted Dr. Noone and he violated our trust. He performed an unauthorized surgery without our knowledge or consent! In my opinion, this is malpractice, as well as how my dog was shot with morphine and forced to go home afterwards. If you want to keep your animals alive, do not go here. Go to Blue Pearl instead.